


You'll Never Walk Carefree

by zanoranna (rei_c)



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Depression, Gen, Look At Your Life Look At Your Choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-15
Updated: 2012-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23247448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rei_c/pseuds/zanoranna
Summary: Sometimes, slogans can say so much about a club. And sometimes, they can mean so much to a person.





	You'll Never Walk Carefree

**Author's Note:**

> A shameless, waffling little collection of snapshots about Fernando, his choice to leave Liverpool, and his struggle at Chelsea.

They say there's no right way to leave a football club. They also say you'll never walk alone. 

Only one of these things is true. 

\\\

Fernando's tired, in pain, and feeling guilty for not being as excited as the ones dancing up and down the aisles. Spain won the World Cup. For the first time ever, Spain won, and Fernando knows he did absolutely nothing to help his team along. He wants to curl into a ball under a heap of blankets and never leave, but there's Madrid, after this, and then Liverpool. 

Liverpool. 

Fernando looks to make sure Pepe's nowhere in hearing distance, then leans closer to Xabi. 

"You, uh," he says. Xabi glances at him, eyebrow raised in question. "You left," Fernando says. "Liverpool. Do you regret it?" 

Something in Xabi's expression has closed off but he turns to look at Fernando head-on. "Regret implies something I would change if I had the chance to go back and do things over again. So no, I don't regret it. But there are times at night where I miss it." He smiles, just a melancholic twist of his lips, and says, "Sometimes I miss it very much." 

"Chelsea's been after me," Fernando says. "Again. Still. One of the two. But I don't know if. I promised Stevie I'd wait until Christmas and see what Hodgson's like. But if Chelsea come knocking during January, then I. I guess it depends on where we are."

"They'll hate you, you know," Xabi says. For a moment, Fernando thinks he's talking about the team and Fernando's heart skips a beat, stomach churning at the thought of Stevie and Carra and Pepe and the others hating him. But then Xabi says, "The fans will think of it as betrayal. You'll never be welcome in Liverpool again. Can you deal with that?" 

The fans. That's okay. Fernando can deal with displeased fans, God knows he can. But Stamford Bridge is one thing and Anfield is another. _Can_ he deal with that? Of being booed when he goes back to the Kop, of being spat on in the press and derided in the street? Of being hated in what he considers -- in what he will always consider -- his English home?

It's not worth it to leave, if it comes to that -- which it will. "Chelsea is in the Champions League," Fernando says, "and they probably will be next year. They have a strong squad."

"That's not an answer, 'Nando," Xabi says, softly. 

Fernando nods. "I know." 

\\\

He's given it half the season. Hodgson is a joke and whatever Dalglish does, it won't be enough. The team's a mess and even with Suárez coming in, nothing will change. Nothing ever does, except to get worse.

\\\

Fernando calls Cesc and asks, "What's it like, in London?" 

"Today," Cesc pronounces, "it is fucking cold. It might snow, or so they say. They think. Whichever. But fucking cold." 

"No," Fernando says. "Not today. Like, in general. What's it like to live in London?" 

There's a long pause from the other end of the phone, and Cesc says, slowly, "Why are you asking, _niño_?" Fernando doesn't say anything and Cesc says, with dawning suspicion, "It's true, what they're saying? You're leaving Liverpool? Moving to Chelsea? Fernando? Is it true?" 

Fernando licks his lips and takes a deep breath. Cesc is hundreds of miles away but Fernando still looks down at the floor, as if he can't bear to meet anyone's eyes. He's entirely alone. 

"What's it like, in London?" he asks again, and feels something in his heart rip to pieces when Cesc says his name. 

"Oh, ' _Nando_."

\\\

Fernando takes a deep breath, then pushes open the door. Noise spills out of the dressing room, most of it in English, though an English with a different accent than the one that used to ring through Melwood. 

\\\

They have to sell their house. Olalla will stay in Liverpool with Nora until it's done. They had thought about asking Pepe to keep an eye on it while the estate agent tries to sell it but Pepe refuses to speak to Fernando or even acknowledge his existence. Pepe talks to Olalla, dotes on Nora and Leo, like nothing has changed there, but it's uncomfortable to say the least. He'll get over it, Fernando knows he will; Xabi and Masch warned him about this, told him to expect it. 

It still hurts, though. Pepe has been a mainstay of Fernando's existence for so long, now. Three and a half years at Anfield, since 2002 in the Spain U-21s. It's strange to think of, sometimes, that Fernando has been closer to Pepe for longer than he has to Sergio.

"Oh, god," he says, out loud, dropping the newspaper he'd been using to wrap up some of the more personal breakable items, the ones he doesn't trust to the movers. "Sergio." 

It takes him hours to work up the courage to call. When he does, Sergio answers his phone with, "I was wondering how long it would be before I heard from you." 

There's no judgment in Sergio's statement, no icy distance; Sergio's warm, concerned, caring, just like always. Something deep within Fernando unclenches and he hangs his head in relief, closing his eyes. 

"I'm sorry," Fernando says. 

It's all he has to say. 

"Fernando," Sergio says. "You don't have anything to be sorry for."

\\\

It's a strange thing, sometimes, this feeling of displacement. Fernando crouches on the touchline; the grass is wet and the ground is cold but to have something firm, to feel as if the earth can hold him together -- he needs that. When he was in Liverpool, he missed Madrid. Now that he's here, in London, he misses Liverpool. 

He's gotten used to the way it feels to miss his home, to miss his city, where he was born and kicked a football for the first time and walked out of a tunnel to a crowd of screaming fans and wore the armband. Missing Madrid is something Fernando feels like a weight on his shoulders; it was a struggle to keep breathing at first but he barely feels it anymore. It's become a part of him, to long for Spain. 

Missing Liverpool, though, is new and it hurts. Every minute of every day, like a knife to the gut. He thinks about calling Xabi, to demand an answer, _how do you live with it_. He wants to ask _how could you let me do this_ , sometimes even _aren't we friends enough for you to tell me when I do something stupid_. 

Fernando doesn't call. It would be pointless. Xabi has no regrets. Fernando shouldn't have any either -- but he does. 

\\\

He's a failure. 

At 27, he's a washed up striker who can't find the back of the net to save his life. His teammates are good to him, he likes spending time with Juan and Oriol, but maybe it would be better if he left. Abramovich could sell him -- it would be at a loss -- or maybe he should just retire now, save another four years of newsprint and blog-space from telling him what he already knows. 

He's lost whatever he had. Sometimes, trudging up the tunnel after a game, yet another game when he hasn't scored, Fernando wonders -- maybe he never had it to begin with. Maybe it was Madrid. Maybe it was Stevie. Maybe it was Spain. 

Maybe it was never Fernando Torres.

It wouldn't be his fault, then. 

\\\

The squad for the Euros is announced. Fernando's name isn't. It's the end of an era, some people say. Others are vindicated; they take to the blogs and the papers and the airwaves to say that of course Del Bosque wouldn't pick him when there are so many other players, other forwards and strikers and wingers, so much more productive than Fernando has been. 

He watches the games at home in Madrid, with his family. He thinks that this is the way Dani must have felt, getting dumped by the team after the Confederations Cup. Or maybe, this is the way Rubén felt, cheated out of the team he loved because his own body couldn't keep up, no matter how hard he trained and begged and prayed.

Spain is his home, but sometimes Fernando thinks that maybe, just maybe, she asks more of her people than they can ever possibly give. 

\\\

"What do you want to do?" Fernando's agent asks. There are offers on the table, more than Fernando would have expected at all. 

One of those offers has Cerezo's signature on it. Fernando can't help it; he runs his fingers across the name, feeling the sharp indent of Enrique's writing on the paper. 

"There's a treatment," Fernando says. "It's new, but I. They say it might help. I'd like to try it."

Fernando's agent nods but presses the issue. "And a transfer?" 

There's also a letter from Roman, counter-signed by Gourlay, sitting there among the offers, dwarfed by the bound and stapled packets. Fernando reaches out, takes the letter, trails his fingers across the embossed crest and the signatures of his club's owner and chief executive. 

Last time, faced with this, he left. He made his old club scramble and his new club a laughingstock, made a decision that felt more like running away, despite his reasons. 

"I think I'd like to stay." Fernando takes a deep breath, sets the letter down and stares at it. "I want to try the treatment and I want to stay." Fernando smiles, the corners of his lips quirking upwards, and adds, "I promised Roman the Champions League, after all." 

"Are you sure?" 

Fernando lets out a deep breath and nods. "Strive for victory," he says. "Shun defeat." 

\\\

Carefree, they say. 

Sometimes, after Fernando's scored and his teammates pile on top of him near the corner flag, after he's run to hug Juan and Oriol, after he's kissed the crest while staring at Roman, he thinks -- yes, they're right. 

This time, for the first time in a long time, they're exactly right.

Carefree.


End file.
